Neon is a startup with a scientific foundation and a blue-sky vision. Neon's team is working away to help people discover the world through images. 

With the support of some of the finest VC firms in the Valley, Neon is ready to turn up the heat. It's a privilege to be growing in such an inspiring part of the world; and so Neon's craftsman have set up shop between Mountain View and SoMa. 

With folks from all over the world, there is always a lot to say in our offices. Neon values each team member's voice and believes that only through listening to our team, customers, and partners, will we be able to build game-changing products that look, feel, and function better than we thought possible.

Being born in a lab, Neon is all about learning. We learn. Our product learns. Neon constantly creates opportunities for team members to discover new skills; whether our designers want to learn to code or our code-monkeys fancy photography, there is no limit to how we can grow. And as we grow our product grows. Literally. Team members share their favorite image snaps, which form the building blocks of Neon. You could say; our team is our product.

If there is a way to simplify something, we do it. Whether it's the coffee run in the morning or crafting our product, we're committed to finding the most straightforward way. Deb, one of our data scientists, says, "The beauty of working for Neon is that the goal is simple - find the best image. We believe that the more complicated the problem the greater the need for simplicity." 

People join Neon to think deep and build fast. Designers, scientists, engineers, and visionaries are coming together to select and deliver the best images on the Internet.

careers@neon-lab.com

We are so excited to welcome Sunil Mallya to the Neon team. Sunil is a young energetic engineer with great ambition.

When not tasting San Francisco's finest taquerias or improvising on the stage, Sunil can now be found coding away at Neon HQ. Amongst a collaboration of scientists, designers and business tycoons, Sunil brings more than just his fast problem solving and coding magic tricks. Sunil is an A-game engineer. We agree the word 'innovation' has been rinsed in the Valley but Sunil is a true innovator. He defines engineering as "building new stuff" and has built massively scalable systems including web servers/proxies, distributed filesystems, search engines and energy management systems in his time. He is motivated by problems that span multiple domains where he can put his diverse set of skills to the test and thrives off working in a creative environment.

Arguably Brown students have a distinctive approach to the technology industry; graduating with a Masters in Computer Science, Sunil is not your run of the mill code-monkey. He is an avid fan of Hollywood classics and a bit of an Actor himself. If he's not coding, Sunil can be found cooking up a storm or exploring what the Germans have to offer in Hayes. 

Co-Founder and Brown Alum Sophie has struck gold "I love Sunil's change-the-world attitude. He has just the right energy and outlook to build a game changing company. It's awesome that he teaches me something new everyday and not always about coding!"

As an online video surfer himself, Sunil is passionate about transforming the face of online video. He is committed to working with the Neon team to solve this problem and help create a more beautiful internet out there.  

Before the YouTube phenomenon, I loved sharing videos with my friends. Even before it was possible to easily upload and share these videos we would have screenings during parties - nothing beats live feedback!

Once I was able to share these videos digitally, I would upload a file to my server and send an email to my friends telling them to check out my video. It was quite new then so I was fairly certain they would click it, download the video and watch it on Windows Media Player. At that time, we weren't flooded with content so watching a video that your friend had made was very much a novelty. 

Now fast forward ten years and every connected person on the planet is a filmmaker or content creator. On top of that, there are endless ways to publish and share content; and on top of that, algorithms are constantly evolving to suggest what you want to watch.

I know from my own experience that I will click on an engaging thumbnail even if I don't know what it's for. This may lead to me watching a video about snowboarding, followed by a video about GoPro cameras and finally a video about the science behind rechargeable batteries. 

The thumbnail is the one image that must capture the entire video - this is quite a task! Depending on where the video is hosted this image may end up being quite small. There is only so much information you can fit into a thumbnail. Fortunately, as screen resolutions increase, as do these image sizes.

When I upload one of my videos, I like to see what different frames might look like at different sizes. I put these to one side and ask myself the following questions:

- Do I recognise what this is before thinking about it?

- Does the quality of this one image represent the quality of this video?

- Is this something I would click on?

- Does this image convey a story or describe a place? 

As you scale down these images you might even find that the image becomes less clear. I will sometimes boost the contrast or sharpen the image so that certain things will still pop at this size.

Here is a sample series of thumbnails from my video Dogs in Cars:

After looking at these, plus many more, it became clear to me that the most brilliant image is the last in the set. 

Dogs in Cars from keith on Vimeo.

But, do these both spark your interest in the same way?

Eventually I chose to use an image without the title as the thumbnail, mainly because the dog's expression is much more engaging in the second image.

Dogs in Cars: California from keith on Vimeo.

What thumbnail would YOU click?

Choosing a thumbnail is vital to whether people click but at the end of the day, that's got to be backed up by the best content.

Check out Keith's Facebook page for more examples of great thumbnails.

As a company focused on what makes people click, we were excited at the opportunity to invite students from Carnegie Mellon's Master of Entertainment Industry Management (MEIM) program to sit at our table. Neon is a Capstone Industry Partner for the 2012/13 MEIM program.

By choosing Neon for their Capstone Project; Justine Patrick, Ashley Porter and Alyssa Connelly are straddling two worlds - Hollywood and Silicon Valley; aka Technollywood.

With everyone turning to their tablets, mobile devices and laptops to consume content; Neon is fascinated by this new world developing. Therefore having these entertainment industry experts sitting alongside software engineers, scientists and business brains, working together to understand this new space, was refreshing. Different perspectives from different industries is the first step to redefining this space effectively.

To give the girls a taste of how the cogs turn up here in Nor'Cal and inspire them to start thinking about Tech, we took them to Google. We rode google bikes, admired the veggie patch and even mourned some unfortunate bees at the hive; all the while discussing the nature of working for a large technology company such as Google and the possibilities of the ever-digitizing world.

Whilst up here, Justine and Alyssa had the chance to pitch their research project to Neon and some fellow CMU faculty and students. Using the evolving idea of Technollywood combined with their resources across both the entertainment and now technology industries, their Capstone is an ambitious research project that got CMU Silicon Valley buzzing.

As a final part of their 3-day Neon retreat we introduced the MEIM party to San Francisco. A tour around Zynga with the intention of divulging the team in yet more Tech and exploring the gaming entertainment industry, turned into a fun fair. Zynga, known for its games and gaming platforms, has an exceptional array of entertainment throughout its vibrant head quarters. Once we had danced, raced and even dominated on the 1980's favourite 'centipede', we wrapped up the trip with some well deserved beers!

It is a pleasure to be working with such enthusiastic, intelligent young women. We are already looking forward to the final presentation in April - and the party afterwards!!

To see more photos from the CMU Capstone trip, please visit our Facebook page.

As more and more people turn to online media for entertainment, the competition for best distributor is heating up. 

The nature of online movie-rental, where you would have had access for a set period, is being demolished as people now commit to monthly subscriptions. Companies such as Netflix and Hulu currently dominate the space with a wide range of TV series and a selection of movies. Amazon.com Inc, the world’s largest Internet retailer, is now turning its hand to online media. Despite hosting different content, with a focus on new release movies, Amazon is offering customers affordable monthly subscriptions inclusive of their instant video, e-books library and free shipping.

Having displayed their diversity through the success of AWS, their web services and cloud computing, Amazon is now turning its attention to a new area of consumerism. With great resources and a reputable name, powerhouse Amazon.com Inc is diving into the pool of online media and making a splash. Watch this space. 

From the initial discoveries at Brown, to the commercial transition in Pittsburgh and now pioneering the incubation program at Carnegie Mellon’s Silicon Valley campus, Mountain View, Neon has come a long way.

Since Neon touched down in the Valley, all systems have been “go”. We love being just down the road from some of the leading video publishers and platforms; and finding ourselves in conversation with some of the most creative scientists, engineers, designers and entrepreneurs. Every conversation, coffee date and drinks party is helping us understand how to build a product that will make our customers happy. 

Silicon Valley is a glass half full location; it is buzzing with opportunistic talent, pioneering technology and energetic entrepreneurs. So if the shoe fits...

Instagram, initially sharing images through mobile; now, also sharing via the web.

From a 13-employee app to a billion-dollar acquisition, Instagram has stuck true to its product. It enables customers to create, customize and share beautiful images. 

Today, Instagram has launched a web interface for user profiles. The site is not dissimilar to Facebook. The functionality of the page is simple and not cluttered with words. The arrangement of the filtered shots on each page is simple and satisfying; somewhat like a real sepia-stained photo-album.

Users will still be able to capture and share memories through their mobile devices but this web-presence "allows you to have a single destination to point people at to see all your beautiful photos,” Instagram founder Kevin Systrom told Techcrunch.

Consider this: each beautiful image shared via Instagram is a thumbnail for a memory. The more visually appealing the image, the more 'likes' and 'comments' aka more user-engagement. 

Instagram proves that the world 'likes' beautiful images.